James Horner RIP

bnt

(Variety report) Composer James Horner has died, after the small plane he was piloting crashed near Santa Barbara in California. The Variety article lists his credits, which are extensive, and include two Oscars for the movie Titanic (for score and original song). Others that stand out include Braveheart, Aliens, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Avatar, A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13. His most recent commission, for The 33 (about the trapped Chilean miners), is in post-production.

TwoShedsJackson

'Krull' was my favourite of his soundtracks, or 'Glory'. Really loved his musical style.

Dair76

Sad news. RIP.

MakeEmLaugh

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of film music.

JP Liz V1

RIP

The_Valeyard

I really loved his Wrath of Khan soundtrack, The Enterprise cleering the moorings was just beautiful, so was the genesis countdown.

Sad Professor

Horner was a master of swelling orchestration. Think of the launch of Apollo 13, the Rocketeer’s first flight, William Wallace’s last scream, the destruction of Hometree in Avatar, the Titanic leaving port, the list goes on. In the right film with the right scene, his scores could lift you up in a wave of emotion which you had absolutely no say in. At other times, often in the same films, his scores could be so soupy you’d want to go running from the cinema. But even then his music tended to reflect the film. He always delivered.

Sadly in later years, as his music became popular temp track material with directors and editors, I think he found himself being hired to just re-hash his popular scores, which is a shame.

colossus-x

The_Valeyard wrote: »

I really loved his Wrath of Khan soundtrack, The Enterprise cleering the moorings was just beautiful, so was the genesis countdown.

Yes agreed. My fav of his though is the following Search for Spock Soundtrack which has the "stealing the enterprise" piece that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time. Still adore Titanic and is the only reason I've watched that movie more than once.

bnt

JH also did Field Of Dreams: here he is talking about how the score came together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jetzB-dsz5U

Wedwood

Glad to see I wasn't the only person who bought James Horner's Star Trek soundtracks. His theme for ST II perfectly conveyed the naval tone to the movie.

Horner's 'Enterprise' themes mentioned above were magnificent, as were his 'battle themes' such as the Mutara Nebula and Bird of Prey pieces which made the battle scenes really epic.

Aliens was another terrific soundtrack, I especially love Horner's music for the climax of the movie as well as 'Ripley's Rescue'. (He recycled some of the Aliens soundtrack for the ending of Die Hard, which I never got).

More recently, Avatar of course, but I really liked his Amazing Spider-man theme which was quirky but catchy.

A really terrible loss for lovers of great movie music.

SimonTemplar

Wedwood wrote: »

Aliens was another terrific soundtrack, I especially love Horner's music for the climax of the movie as well as 'Ripley's Rescue'. (He recycled some of the Aliens soundtrack for the ending of Die Hard, which I never got).

Horner had nothing to do with Die Hard. That movie was scored by Michael Kamen. It was the director's decision to put that cue from Aliens at the end of the movie.

Something similar happened with Alien. Ridley Scott decided to use a cue from Jerry Goldsmith's Freud during the scene where the acid burns through the ship instead of the actual cue Goldsmith wrote for that scene.

During the initial editing of the movie, a temp score is often added to the edit consisting of existing music from previous movies. Sometimes the director associates a particular scene so much with the temp music, it ends up in the final movie (or he requests the composer to write a cue very very similar in style and tone to the temp music)

Zubeneschamali

SimonTemplar wrote: »

During the initial editing of the movie, a temp score is often added to the edit consisting of existing music from previous movies. Sometimes the director associates a particular scene so much with the temp music, it ends up in the final movie (or he requests the composer to write a cue very very similar in style and tone to the temp music)

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick was using classical pieces as a temp score while Alex North (who scored Spartacus) wrote the score. Kubrick decided he'd stick with the classical stuff in the end.

Being Kubrick, he never told North, who only found out watching at the premiere.